


Paradise Not

by FleaBee



Category: Red Dwarf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 08:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15093098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleaBee/pseuds/FleaBee
Summary: It was paradise, and yet Rimmer was terrified, and Lister cannot find what he could possibly be afraid of. The plants and insects weren't even of the mutant variety.





	Paradise Not

Lister looked on as Rimmer went racing past. The hologram was on high alert, something had obviously registered as a threat to him. As Lister looked around the beautiful garden, he wondered what exactly the hologram could possibly be running from this time. He didn't see any killer plants and the droids that inhabited the garden plant were all docile. There was absolutely nothing he could see.

They'd detected no threats when they'd arrived on the planetoid. No GELFs, no simulants, no tears in the dimension, no black holes, nothing that Lister could see that would usually scare the hologram. In fact, all he could see was a lovely garden that had been well maintained over the millions of years. The droids that had once looked after this facility still working away in harvesting plants and trimming and mowing. It was a paradise, and he was seriously considering staying here forever. He'd never seen anything this lovely in years.

Kryten was in heaven as he conversed with the gardening droids. The sanitation droid's hobby other than cleaning and ironing was looking after the botanical gardens on Red Dwarf and getting them back in order. Rimmer, after finding out his biological father was the gardener had started joining Kryten in the garden to see if he'd inherited any skills from him since he didn't inherit any of the skills from the man he'd believed was his father for several centuries or his mother. Rimmer didn't seem to have much of knack for gardening either to the hologram's disappointment, but it hadn't stopped him from trying, and he seemed to enjoy his time with Kryten, and they were getting along a lot better these days, without as many snide remarks from Rimmer towards the mechanoid.

Walking towards the direction, Rimmer had come bolting from he still didn't see any killer plants or anything else that looked deadly enough to scare the man who was scared of almost anything. With a shake of his head, he walked over to Kryten who was scanning all the plants and insects gleefully.

Lister smiled at the butterflies, bees and ladybeetles. It was strange seeing normal everyday insects again after so many years of living in a ship without them or only coming across evolved mutant insects which could be mistaken for aliens. Lister caught sight of Cat, stalking and batting around a butterfly. He seemed to be having fun having something different than space weevils to stalk. It was something he never thought he would see again and it was nice. He planned to take some of the insects back to Red Dwarf.

"Anything we need to be concerned about?" Lister asked Kryten if there were a threat he would know about it.

"Nothing at all," Kyten exclaimed. "Everything is safe. It is so exciting, all these plants I can add to Red Dwarf. I can cook meals with fresh fruit and vegetables again."

"Then why did Rimmer go running if everything is safe?" Lister looked towards Starbug seeing Rimmer hadn't emerged, but he also hadn't taken off leaving them behind.

"Bathroom?" Kryten suggested.

Lister shrugged. Rimmer didn't need to use the bathroom, unless. He tried not to picture what Rimmer might be doing. While Rimmer tried to act like he had no interest in sex or anything like that, he had some slightly kinky fetishes which Lister had learnt over the years. It was something he didn't want to know, but when you live with someone for years and years on end, in the same confined space, you learn things you'd rather not, especially when you get stuck in their psyche. And Rimmer knew just as many of his, probably more than all of his old girlfriends.

Lister looked in surprise as he saw some bee's flying around the garden. He saw them before, but it hadn't registered as more than a bug. If bees were around, that would mean there would be honey. Lister could not remember the last time he had honey, but it had been a long while ago. A long long while ago. It was something that both Rimmer and Kris had loved to eat and have in tea occasionally. There had been a lot of complaining from Kris and Rimmer when they'd run out of honey.

"Kryten, are the bee's mutated at all?" Lister asked. He wouldn't be surprised if they were, they'd come across some strange, weird and dangerous mutations over the years.

"Not at all sir, they are just regular honeybees," Kryten continued into an explanation of what species of bee they were and where they came from initially.

Lister stopped listening, interrupting the history of bees lesson. "Can we take them back to the Red Dwarf and get there honey?"

"Of course sir, it will make my job of pollinating the garden all the easier. I will not have to do every plant myself, the bees will do it for me. Oh, this is excellent, I will be able to cook a bigger range of recipes having access to honey again."

 It was decided that the honey bees and a couple of hives would be transferred to Starbug along with a range of plants and a couple of the droids who'd been maintaining the garden.

 

After enjoying some time in the sun on the botanical planet and gathering items they wanted to take to Red Dwarf, he returned to the ship. They planned to come back after this trip and make a vacation of it. Lister watched Rimmer pacing and muttering to himself.

"Rimmer, what are you doing?" Lister asked, startling the hologram who hadn't seen or heard him come in.

"Nothing," Rimmer replied, sounding and looking very suspicious.

Lister raised an eyebrow. "We're loading up the ship with what we've found. We're going to be leaving soon, are you going to help us load?"

"I'm going to stay here and mark off the inventory," Rimmer stated, picking up a pen and paper, looking weary as he glanced out the ship.

Lister couldn't believe Rimmer sometimes. He'd go on about how important it was that everyone in the posse pulled their weights and here he was slacking off. Using any excuse not to do any manual handling despite the fact he was the strongest one their due to his hard light drive. Lister couldn't be bothered arguing.

"You're a real smeghead, you know that," Lister said before he left the ship not waiting for a response from Rimmer.

 

They had only one thing left to load onto the ship. They'd left the hives with their bees till last since they had other things they wanted from the planet as well and the last thing they needed was the bee's getting upset while the transferred things back and forwards.

Rimmer looking shifty every single time he opened the door to let them in. Lister couldn't understand why he was shutting the door in between loads. It would be so much quicker if he didn't keep closing the door.

He and Kryten had just bought the smoked bees onto the ship when Rimmer froze for a few moments before stumbling backwards and falling onto the floor. He curled up into the foetal position, protecting his head and started shaking in fear.

"Rimmer, what are you doing?" Lister asked looking around once again for something that could possibly be frightening Rimmer this much.

"What am I doing! What are you doing bringing those monsters onto the ship? They're going to kill everyone." Rimmer said in an angry, frightened whisper like he was trying to stay silent on purpose.

"Rimmer, their just bee's, just normal garden bee's. They're not going to hurt you, well they sting, and they hurt for a little while, but they heal up quickly. I got stung eleven times while I was out there." Lister explained showing Rimmer some of his sting marks that had caused the hologram to whimper. "Kryten checked. They're not mutated, just bee's like they were three million years ago. They have not changed one bit."

Rimmer had managed to find a blanket and was now wrapped up from head to toe.

"They are evil, vile creatures who shouldn't exist. They were vile three million years ago and still vial now." Rimmer exclaimed hysterically.

"Rimmer, they produce honey, honey which is your favourite sweet thing to eat." Lister rolled his eye. "We're keeping the bees, and you're going to like it. You're going to be the one that eats most of the honey they produce."

Rimmer narrowed his eyes. "Then you need to keep them away from me. I wish that honey didn't come from those little monsters."

Lister rolled his eyes at Rimmer's overreaction. He hated sharp and pointy things so he shouldn't have been surprised. Despite being dead for three million years, he was still terrified of injections.

Together Lister and Kryten stored the bee's in the hold with everything else. They collected Cat who was still chasing butterflies. He refused to help in, and they only managed to get him to agree to come when he learnt they had some butterflies for the garden back on the ship.

"Rimmer, are you going to stay under that blanket forever?" Lister asked peaking under.

"Are all the bee's gone?" Rimmer asked, a tremor in his voice.

"They're gone. Not one left." Lister replied. He knew Rimmer was a coward, but he'd never seen him so terrified of a little bug before or anything else for that matter, even simulants, GELFs and certain death in years anyway. Rimmer used to jump at his own shadow before the accident.

Rimmer slowly came out of the blanket, his eyes darting everywhere. He kept the blanket with him and shuffled to his console, his breathing heavy, short and quick. He was seconds away from a panic attack. He'd be useless during takeoff.

 

They sat at their respective consoles and took off. They heard a buzz in the drive room, and Lister watched and laughed as the thing landed on Rimmer, stinging the hologram as he panicked and tried to brush it away. Lister and Cat both laughed together.

"It stung me," Rimmer said with a shocked, disbelieving look stuck on his face as he looked at his hand that was stung the blanket fell to the floor. His eyes went large which caused Lister to look at Rimmer's hand his laughing stopped as Rimmer's hand started to swelled rather quickly.

Lister watched as Rimmer's un-swollen hand started clawing at his throat despite not needing to breathe and then his swollen hand joined.

"Rimmer, what's going on?" Lister asked, jumped up from his seat and over to the hologram.

"Allergic to bee's." Rimmer wheezed. "Always have been." He continued wheezing. "Didn't think as hologram." He seemed to be a bit calmer talking to Lister and not clawing at his throat as much. "Didn't want to risk. Thought laugh scared allergy." Rimmer said, his breath's getting shorter.

Lister was now concerned as he watched Rimmer going into anaphylactic shock. He felt helpless and didn't know what to do. He never knew anyone that had server allergies. He didn't know Rimmer had terrible allergies.

Kryten looked conflicted between staying at his station and flying to Red Dwarf or helping Mr Rimmer.

"Cat, keep flying to the ship. Kryten, help me get him to the medibay," Lister made Kryten's decision for him.

 

Lister watched as Kryten managed to write a software program that replicated an adrenaline shot. After a few minutes, Rimmer's breathing settled, and he fell into an uneasy sleep.

"Kryten, what just happened?" Lister asked still shaken from the turn of events. "He's dead, how can he still be affected?"

"His hard light drive replicates everything about him physically, that includes allergies and how he reacts to those allergies," Kryten explained. "Legion really did make him a one of a kind drive. I've examined other drives from other ships since and no other hardlight drive had been like Mr Rimmers."

"Can it kill him?" Lister asked. He never knew what would and wouldn't kill the hologram since learning it was possible for a hologram to die.

"No it cannot kill him," Kryten assured him. "It can cause a severe reaction as you just witnessed, a lot more severe and painful since he can't actually die."

Lister hoped he didn't ever see that again, it was horrible. "Can we alter his programming, so he's no longer allergic, or even some temporary immunity?"

"We cannot alter his programming without affecting other traits. We could make things for him worse. I cannot temporarily give him immunity." Kryten answered what Lister already knew.

"We need to turn around and get rid of the bees," Lister said with a heavy sigh. "We cannot risk them getting lose and Rimmer having another reaction like this. We'll need to get as much honey as possible, who knows when we'll ever get to see bee's again."

"Instead of turning around, I recommend we put the bees into stasis. That way, if we ever come up with something that makes Mister Rimmer immune, we'll be able to get the bee's out again. Or we could even get them out temporarily when we run out of honey, making sure Mister Rimmer is safe.

Lister gave Kryten a weak smiled, but he nodded with agreement. That way they at least had options for the future.

Rimmer was still unconscious when they returned to the Red Dwarf. He was carried up to his bed, Kryten not wanting to risk turning off his projection at the moment since they never knew how that would affect him either. Nearly everything with Rimmer's lightbee was guesswork that they'd figured out over the years. The bees were placed into stasis with other food products, and a check was done to make sure no bees were left behind. They didn't want Rimmer having another allergic reaction even if it would not kill him, well except Cat who thought the thing was entertaining.

 

Lister was sitting at the table, eating his breakfast when Rimmer awoke the next morning. No longer swollen or looking like a balloon. His hair was a bit messy than his normal self.

"How are you feeling?" Lister asked wishing he could go over and comfort Rimmer, but from years of experience, he knew that would cause Rimmer to pull away.

"Better," Rimmer replied, feeling his no longer swollen throat and looking at his slightly swollen hand.

Lister apologised. "Sorry, if I knew you were allergic to bees I would've never bought them on board. Having an allergy is nothing to be worried about me teasing you for. I'm not going to tease you for it. You can't help what you're allergic to."

"My parents didn't think so," Rimmer got himself out of bed and walked to the kitchenette and started making himself tea before he started talking again. "We don't have bee's on Io with the stinger. I didn't find out I was allergic until a school field trip to Earth. The boys that I went to school with found a beehive. They stirred up the beehive, and all of us were stung. I was the only one that reacted, ended up in the hospital for three days. My parent's pointed out it was another thing that showed I wasn't perfect like my brothers. The next time I got stung was also on Earth, I stood on a bee in my grandparents garden. Ended up in the hospital that time as well. They only stopped giving me a hard time about my allergy when Frank turned out to be allergic as well. He's never been stung, but it showed up in an allergy test he took when he started with the Space Corps."

Lister smiled when he noticed Rimmer putting some honey into his tea.

"So where are the bee's now?" Rimmer asked once he'd sat at the table with his honey-sweetened tea.

"Stasis," Lister replied. "Kryten's going to work on something to see if we can make you immune. If not, somewhere on the ship that they cannot get out accidentally so we can still access honey."

"I love honey," Rimmer sighed, leaning on his swollen hand, wincing slightly. "It was one of the few sweet things I was allowed to eat growing up. It's unfair that it comes from something I'm deathly allergic to. If I get stung again, will it kill me?"

"No, but it won't be pleasant," Lister replied. "I don't understand why the people who made hardlight holograms would leave stuff like that."

"It makes me feel like I'm still alive when little things like that still affect me," Rimmer admitted. "I'll take allergies to being stuck as a softlight hologram not being able to feel anything."

Rimmer took a sip of his tea a smile shadowing his lips as he got a taste of tea. "My tea is perfect for the first time in years."


End file.
